Starter Set Play Report

I’ve been wanting to run the adventures from Starter Set, Dungeon Master’s Kit, and Monster Vault, and I finally had a chance to start down that road last night. I let the players do whatever, not wanting to limit them to Essentials-only classes, and ended up with a triumvirate consisting of a longtooth shifter paladin of Kord, wise-cracking gnome bard, and dragonborn revenant dark pact warlock. At least it’s not as bad as the all drow party that I dragged through Keep on the Shadowfell.

It was going to be a bumpy ride…

I skipped the intro battle entirely, not wanting to waste time, and got them directly to the dungeon’s entrance after a bit of exposition about what was going on: they’re looking for a merchants “black box”, because it’s worth more cash and XP. I laid out the map, allowing them to pick from a door, and got a very strange reaction. Two of the players are new, and I guess had some…bad experiences, let’s say, going through a lengthy routine consisting of Perception (with two Aid Anothers), Arcana, tying a rope around a ring in the door, and trying to force it from as far away as possible. Apparently having every single door trapped was a popular trend?

They got one door open, a goblin peeked out, yelped in surprise, and then beat their collective Strength rolls to close it again. So they went to the other door, and after a few more Perceptions and Arcanas got that one open, and started fighting when I promised them that the goblins inside wouldn’t polymorph into wraith dragons and drain their levels, and were in fact incapably weak. Again, two were new, and there were only three, so I parsed the encounters down for them (or delayed the arrival of additional enemies). They got through every room without much hassle, since it was mostly goblins with the occasional dire rat thrown in, until they got to the dragon.

More checks were rolled, and they learned that it was–drumroll–white and cold-based. One player tried to goad it, while another tried to bribe it. Eventually I just said fuck it and started combat, feeling that I’d been more than fair with the dragon’s patience. Now, new solos are a bitch, so I did pull punches at the start. I used dragon breath, then stuck to bite since I was rolling poorly and didn’t want to kill of the paladin immediately. It didn’t help that the other players missed with all their dailies and encounters. The bard quickly ran out of majestic words and the paladin had to Action Point her second wind.

Then, for some reason, they started rolling crits. Like, a lot. As the dragon’s hit points rapidly dwindled, I started using his Action Points and double-clawing. As fortune had it, I’d basically end up hitting the paladin when her hit points regenerated to where I wouldn’t instantly kill her (fuck you vicious mockery). Anyway, in a surprising turn of events–in that I didn’t have to fudge dice rolls for the rest of combat–they slew the dragon, looted his tiny lair, made Arcana checks to determine that the teleportation circle lead to a temple full of more loot, and pressed on. The session was called at 2am when they plucked a lifedrinking greataxe from a goblin.

To their credit, they no longer have an irrational fear of doors, so I don’t think I’ll be using mimics anytime soon…I’ll wait til level 6.

Contrasting Red Dragons

This is the new elder red dragon, which will be featured in Monster Vault.

Both are level 20 solo soldiers, but the older one seems much more durable since it has higher hit points, defenses, and fire resistance. It also can’t hover (unless flight rules got changed) and has no overland flight value (again, unless something got changed). Frankly, people constantly bitched about solo battles taking forever, so I see this as a good thing. Point goes to the newer version.

The new dragon gets a couple of traits that prevent it from being locked down during a fight, which in my experience has greatly reduced the danger, tension, and challenge with just even one bad roll. This involves automatically ending dazed, stunned, and dominated at the end of its turn. I love this. I can’t tell you how many times Beth or Josh has brutally fucked solos through various lockdown conditions. I’m putting this, or something similar, on all my solos from now on. Also, it can make a free bite or claw attack before its turn starts (or instead end a stun or dominate condition in effect).

For the most part, attacks are the same, though in many cases damage is increased to one degree or other.

• Bite initially inflicts slightly less on average, but deals quite a bit more when bloodied.
• Claw deals eleven more points on average, and has a built-in “attack one or two creatures” line, so no need fo double claw.
• Immolate foe deals a lot more damage than it did before, and has a Miss effect.
• Breath weapon also deals substantially more damage, but otherwise works the same.
• Frightful presence is gone.
• Tail strike has improved range and flexibility at the cost of damage; the dragon can target anyone moving anywhere within 3 squares, instead of just those that end in a flanking spot, and while it deals seven damage less on average, it knocks them prone.

While I kinda miss frightful presence, the ability to shrug off lockdown conditions is well worth it.

Meet The Scout

An Essentials take of the melee ranger, the scout is a martial/primal hybrid that can either emphasize swords or axes, gaining a bonus to accuracy or damage respectively. Like rangers, scouts can use their Dexterity modifier for attack and damage with their melee basic attacks, and make a free attack once per round when they hit with one thanks to dual weapon attack. Unlike rangers, they can’t use one-handed weapons in both hands, having to instead rely on weapons with the Off Hand property.

They have at-will stances, referred to as aspects, that function as stance and seem to provide multiple benefits. For example, aspect of the cunning fox causes you to take half damage and let’s you shift 2 squares whenever you hit or miss with attacks. Another, aspect of the charging ram, greatly enhances your charge attacks; you ignore opportunity attacks while moving, can prone targets that you hit, and you gain a damage bonus. There’s a bunch of other aspects listed, but not hard mechanics.

The other previewed class feature is power strike, which does what it always does. As with the sentinel and hunter, wilderness knacks doesn’t get any elaboration.

Essentials: Druid

This re-imagining of the druid, or sentinel as it’s called, somewhat hearkens back to the 3rd Edition druid in that it  can…well, heal, I guess. Skimming the Heroic tier class features there’s no mention of wildshape, which combined with it’s ability summon an animal spirit makes this class more like a hybrid of the druid and shaman. Sentinels get to pick from either bears or wolves, each granting a set of passive bonuses and the spirit you get to summon (obviously); bear sentinels deal a shitload of damage with clubs and staffs, and get a +2 to Athletics to boot. Wolf sentinels, on the other hand, can use scimitars, spears, daggers, sickles, get a +1 to hit with them, and gain a +2 to Heal.

As spirits, the Animal Companion doesn’t impose some ridiculous XP tax when killed, or otherwise penalize you in the long term. Rather, you can use a minor action or wait until you stop for a breather. Both cost a healing surge, but if you wait til combat is over it reappears with all of its hit points instead of just your bloodied value. The spirits come with their own stat blocks, making them more like ranger animal compnaions than shaman spirit companions, and have auras that either cause enemies to grant combat advantage, or grant a defense bonus to allies. The last two features class, er, features, are Primal Guardian and Combined Attack. Primal Guardian lets you use your Constitution instead of Dexterity or Intelligence while in light-or-no armor. Combined attack is their encounter attack that lets both you and your companion attack with the same action.

It’s not nearly enough like a druid from an older edition, but that’s okay because I didn’t like druids from older editions. This looks like a melee-oriented shaman, and that’s also okay because I really like shamans. My only gripe is that like all Essentials classes its not flexible enough to carry my attention for long, and I prefer bear shamans for my bear-summoning primal leader goodness.

Keep on the Shadowfell w/ Essentials, Part 4

Picking up where we left off, the group took on the last cultist protected by a trio of ghostly warriors that drained healing surges and targeted Reflex (to the chagrin of Delinth’s 20 AC). Since they were insubstantial and Donner didn’t have a reliable way to inflict radiant damage, I reduced their hit points in order to help keep things moving. With the baddies out of the way, they investigated a large hole in the floor where all the blood was draining, and saw a larger chamber below where someone was chanting in a dark language, and an inky black portal rippled with each fell utterance.

They tried to descend on the chains dangling from the ceiling, but Riven slipped and fell into the pool of blood. This didn’t faze Kalarel, who simply turned around and watched as the rest climbed down. Once they’d reached the pool, he simply ordered his skeleton soldiers to kill them before returning to his regularly scheduled ritual. Well, skeletons and a shitload of zombie minions in the blood pool. Donner and Delinth managed to swing over to the ledge, but the skeletons swarmed Riven and tried to pull the others back in. Delinth’s cleaving stance allowed him to damage the skeletons as well as take down a minion each turn, and once the undead were bloodied Kalarel decided that this would require more hands on attention and unleashed a zone of grasping hands: hundreds of arms burst out of the ground, tearing and grabbing enemies, dealing damage and immobilizing until they save. From his vantage point, he was able to then safely follow up with an action point and pepper them with some generic dark energy bolts that, while not dealing a lot of damage, did weaken Delinth for a turn.

Things started to look bad, as the party hadn’t been able to fully recuperate from the last series of encounters, and both Riven and Sand were running low on healing surges and Riven was having a bitch of a time landing any actual hits. A lucky crit from Delinth knocked all the monsters down (thanks to his magical hammer), and cleared a path for Sand and Riven to get out of the zone and rush Kalarel. Riven used fountain of flame to burn the shit out of him, while Sand used one of his tricks to bundle of backstab and Sneak Attack for one nasty cut. Kalarel wasn’t down, but he was feeling it and retaliated with a wave of exhaustion, which polished off the last of their surges and slowed them. He hobbled away, taking another hit from Sand for good measure, but this meant that neither Riven nor Sand could use second wind and Donner had run out of healing words early on.

They did have action points however, and on the following rounds doubled up their attacks. Delinth had crushed the last of the undead, and had both hit points and healing surges to spare. Closing the gap with a run-and-charge, he walloped Kalarel with the power strike he’d been saving, Sand wedged another short sword between his ribs, and Riven pulled a Jon Woo with magic missile (though the “pew pew” sound effect somewhat diminished the scene). Kalarel fell, his soul got pulled through the dark portal, which collapsed in on itself. Sand found a poisoned dagger and a bunch of shinies before heading back to Winterhaven.

Tonight, it’s off to Thunderspire Labyrinth.

Changes

For sake of time, the previous session I condensed the whole Shadowfell Keep portion to the ruined foundation, and the poster map that came with the module that had the “evil temple” parts. I’d wanted to draw out a catacombs floor, something more logical than in the actual adventure, and I’d recommend doing something like that. Just populate it with undead, traps, and maybe some cultists. Just don’t do long hallways that twist about randomly before they terminate into torture chambers and bed rooms. Ugh.

Also, I halved Kalarel’s level, making him a level 4 elite controller. I changed up his spells a bit, and gave him two different things that he could do with his minor action; hose someone taking ongoing necrotic damage, or having an undead critter make a free basic melee attack. I felt this worked better than giving him a “double swat” attack, but it would only worked when something was close (and still there). The only other things in the encounter were a few skeleton warriors guarding Kalarel, and the blood pool had about 8 zombie rotters. Kalarel is a nasty contender here, so throwing in lots of crazy shit could easily result in a total party kill. Also, I only had four peeps.

Keep on the Shadowfell w/ Essentials, Part 3

Since Devin was jonesing for some more D&D–at midnight no less–so we decided to through a few encounters  in an effort to wrap up Keep on the Shadowfell. Having slain a dragon last session and returned to Winterhaven with word and proof of their deed, they ventured north towards the ruined keep in order to discover the source of the rampant arcane energies that Valthrun had sensed.

I’d drawn up a hasty foundation map with crumbling walls, shallow graves, and grim wards that would writhe and scream when closely approached. As the players investigated the ruins, ancient and armor clad skeletons rose from the ground and attacked under the direction of cultists. A few were dragonborn skeletons that could breath a life-sapping energy, stealing hit points and healing surges alike. After their destruction and a purifying prayer from Donner, they found a ragged suit of chain armor that protected the wearer from necromantic powers (subsequently donned by, well, Donner).

Within a ruined shrine dedicated to Erathis they, after much deliberation, descended into a dark hole with deposited them in a hellish catacomb wreathed in crimson light and glass pillars filled with screaming souls of the damned. Blood flowed from numerous alters, collecting in a deep bit that was guarded by more undead and cultists engaged in an unholy rite in the name of Orcus. Sand took the initiative (literally) by trying to backstab a skeleton, which didn’t work out as well as it could have. Skeletons clambered out of alcoves and frenzied cultists hedged the party in, capturing them in a pincer attack. Other, physically inept cultists hung back and withered away the party’s strength with magic.

This was a pretty grueling battle. Though I’d clustered the minions up nice and tight, Riven had a difficult time incinerating them. Donner’s armor didnt help much because Sand was at the forefront, and it made the most sense to hit him instead of going for targets that he was granting cover to. Many rounds, action points, and healing surges later, they prevailed. Fortunately neither Donner nor Riven used their daily spells, because the fight wasn’t over: the high priest was still waiting with a several tattered spirits at his beck and call. I called it for the night, since by then it was almost two in the morning.

I haven’t gamed that late since I was in high school.

Keep on the Shadowfell w/ Essentials, Behind the Screen

Paul asked a few questions in the comments of my Essentials-only Keep on the Shadowfell playthrough, which can be summed up as what did I change, and did I encourage my players to create the traits that they did.

First, character traits. Since I was running the adventure more or less on the fly, I had the players make characters and quickly come up with backgrounds that worked for them and made sense. When I make a campaign, I let players make whatever they want, but strongly encourage characters that will best fit and make sense. For example, in Tendrils of Fate I told them that since it takes place in the Shadow Marches (Eberron) that half-orcs, humans, primal classes, etc would work out best. I also don’t like having characters pivotal to the continuation of the campaign, since sometimes players die or want to change characters (which can go hand in hand), but like to tie them in as side-treks or optional quests. For example Devin’s character (Sand) is on the run from the authorities in Fallcrest. This might come up later if they go back, or a bounty hunter might seek him out. 

In short, I like to encourage characters to define their characters at least loosely before we start running, but also encourage them to come up with new things on the way. This is fine because when you meet someone, you don’t see everything about them all at once: often new things come up the more you get to know them.

As for modifying the adventure, the first thing I did was change the story, such as it is. Initially Kalarel is trying to open up a portal to the Shadowfell, which is located under a keep—known as Shadowfell Keep—that he’s for some reason populated with various goblinoids and undead. To top it off, he’s also teaming up with kobolds far to the south for equally unexplained reasons. The adventure starts out with the characters heading to Winterhaven, getting ambushed by kobolds, and then getting tasked with cleaning them out. They go there, fight through a shitload of mostly-minions, beat up their goblin leader, and finding a letter handwritten by Kalarel that reveals the big plot. Aside from being something that only the most cliché of villains would do, I have no fucking clue why he’s working with goblin-lead kobolds in the first place.

Starting with the story, I’m more or less treating the kobolds and keep as two separate adventures. For the keep, the backstory that I’m going for is that it was built before or during the time of Nerath, and some paladins or knights or whatever showed up and destroyed the threat lurking within, and built the keep on top to guard the site (and did not refer to it as Shadowfell Keep). After Nerath fell Kalarel showed up with some direction from Orcus to rebuild the place. He opened up the sealed and collapsed passages, and has spent a good deal of time fixing them up so that he could try and re-open the gate. Simple, easy, somewhat logical. How do the kobolds fit in?

They don’t.

The kobolds showed up on their own and have been raiding caravans under the rule of a white dragon and his right-hand man, Irontooth (who is not a goblin, but a kobold that got badass by eating an iron dragon’s heart). There’s no letter in the lair with Kalarel blatantly explaining his villainous cliche. At best, Kalarel is aware of the kobolds, and doesnt give two shits because it provides an adequate distraction for the citizens of Winterhaven. The player’s catch wind of the larger bigger due to rumors of undead shambling throughout the woods and nearby farmland. Since the only structure north is the keep, it provides a clear heading. You could also tie it in with any player running a divine class, giving them some kind of vision, or having to head out there because a family member was torn apart by zombies and you’ve gotta foot the bill for her burial. There are ways to elegantly have the players become curious about the keep without explicitly telling them that the BBEG is lurking there with a haphazard army of goblins, hobgoblins, and some undead for good measure.

To address the numerous complaints of repetition and grindage, I compressed things. Players only need ten encounters to level up, not counting major quests and multiple minor quests. So by making the kobold lair and Shadowfell keep major quests (which they get by going to Winterhaven and talking to NPCs), I can remove at least two encounters. Also since the kobolds were raiding merchant caravans, I also made returning their goods a minor quest. Finally, if the players got to the dragon graveyard, they can find an optional item there (dragon skull) to make things easier for them later, as well as get a bit more XP under their belts. Really the only reason I’ve even going for two-levels worth is because I want to try and keep them up to snuff for subsequent adventures.

Finally it’s just a matter of fixing the encounters, requiring a combination of refurbishing the maps and repopulating the monsters (especially the kobold lair and ALL of the keep). Outside the kobold lair is mostly fine, I just added a wyrmpriest working on a magic item in the magic circle (which grants bonus cold damage), and made the river a bitch to get over without using a log bridge. Combined with rocks for cover, this let ranged characters busy themselves trying to pick off the spear-chucking, spell-slinging mobs while the melee characters close the distance to the dragonshields and skirmishers. I think it lets the roles shine a lot better this way.

I redid the entire internal part to be more consistent with a cave system, such as elevation, rock formations that can serve as difficult or even hazardous terrain, and areas where the characters had to squeeze to get into. To make things easy and neat looking, I’d pick up a pack or two of cavern Dungeon Tiles. Since kobolds are allegedly notorious for rigging traps, I’d add some of those in and/or between encounters, such as cultivated mushroom patches that explode, pits, spears, perhaps something that dumps an ooze on them. They can serve as a warning system and soften up the party. With a more expansive network of tunnels, kobolds can attack and flee from multiple directions (perhaps coaxing characters into traps). I had some thunderstones setup at the start that would not only alert the kobolds, but also drop stalactites on them (which Sand easily noticed). Finally, as I mentioned before Irontooth became a kobold that had, “consumed the heart and blood of an iron dragon,” and overall the entire clan was lead by a white dragon. A much more satisfying finale, methinks.

For the keep, the ruined foundation is going to serve as “floor one”. The crumbling foundation and buildings can work great for providing cover and difficult terrain. The underground passages are still there, they just won’t be lengthy hallways that terminate into massive chambers with randomized functions. I’m going to use pillars and crumbling walls to shake things up, as well as try to have multiple paths to each room to allow for dynamic movement. Since I only need to squeeze out about 7-8 encounters (counting traps and the like) before I can wrap things up, I think I’ll have a catacomb floor and a temple floor with about 4 encounters a pop.

As for monsters? I think I speak for a lot of people when I say no. Fucking. Goblins. None. Nadda. Kalarel is the high priest of the demon lord of the UNDEAD. There are numerous things he can use that fall within the 1-3 level range. Kalarel is a fucking necromancer. Use it. Also? What about cultists? You could cultists fill in the niche for living adversaries if you really must (I plan on allowing them to issue free commands to undead, ala the warlord class). Hell, let the party capture one alive and he can fill in some details. The idea of a cowardly farmer-turned-cultist spilling his guts (before he literally does) is much more feasible than a notarized letter in the hands of a goblin. Finally, since Kalarel is a spellcaster, feel free to mix in arcane traps. Glyphs that incite fear or weaken targets, grim totems that cause attack or defense penalties when characters are too close (perhaps they even scream, causing a push effect). The keep is ancient, so you could also use mundane traps like collapsing floors or ceilings, and if you wanna pimp the undead theme, you could have undead lying in ambush within sarcophagi.

Keep on the Shadowfell w/ Essentials, Part 2

Josh was able to make it this time around, rolling up a human warpriest of Kord, named Donner. While wandering around the forest aimlessly the party happened upon him and a considerable kobold warband. Aside from Delinth getting taken down by a critical ambush (I left some slyblades lurking in bushes), everyone was fine if a few healing surges worse for wear. After the mandatory talkery that always results in the player character joining the fray, they went through a few skill checks to see what happened en route to the kobold lair, and stumbled upon it without any additional random bullshit.

I’m sure I mentioned last time that I lost the map of the kobold lair, so we’d called it early, and since I couldn’t find it I just drew up a new map that I felt worked a lot better. The trees were a lot thicker, and some slingers and slyblades were hiding inside at certain points (the skill challenge was to determine if the kobolds noticed them or not), the river shore had some rocks that could be used for cover, the river was deeper and in a few spots, required Athletics checks to swim across, and the magic circle was a bit further away and added +2 cold damage to all of your attacks (since the wyrmpriest was using it to craft a cold-based magic item).

The party tried to have Sand Stealth his way up the line, hoping to spread themselves out, but one botched roll later had him knocking over a dead tree, alerting all the kobolds to his general area, and startling a bear that was busy foraging for food. Riven bolted from the trees, making herself the only visible (and thus viable) target, and after the subsequent initiative roll saw her reduced to five hit points from a hail of javelins and slinger-stones. Due to the distance the rest of the party had a difficult time getting to her aid before she was taken down by a dragonshield, which was swiftly remedied on the following round once Donner got into the thick of things, muttering healing prayers and clobbering kobolds with his mace.

Sand tried to pick off the slingers using the trees for cover, Delinth managed to keep most of the kobolds from fleeing, though Riven’s searing retaliation to the wyrmpriest’s dragon breath saw it running for the waterfall, though the retreat was cut a bit short when Donner leapt upon it, mace crackling with lightning. In the end only one slinger managed to flee, and only because it was so far away and under cover of the trees. Picking through the corpses, they found a master’s wand of scorching burst and skull that would let anyone wearing it like a hat use a cold-based dragon breath attack once per day. Basically, its the dragonborn’s racial, just keyed to Charisma instead of Constitution.

Donner had noticed that there was a cave behind the waterfall, and assuming that’s where the wyrmpriest was trying to flee, decided to explore it themselves. Having scrapped the original map, I went with something a bit more realistic in its layout. You know, varying height levels, winding tunnels, stalactites, stalagmites, and columns. There were three main encounters, with a few wandering kobolds that could detect them or assist in fights if things went way too smoothly. They couldn’t take an extended rest, and after each fight I rolled to see if their short rest was interrupted as well. Sand took point to scout the place out, finding kobolds to the north, and tried to distract them with a thrown rock. It worked enough for him to stick a dagger in a dragonshield, almost killing it instantly. Donner polished it off, but was lined up perfectly for all the minions and slingers to almost kill him in one round. Unfortunately (again), they were lined up for Riven’s scorching burst to almost kill them instantly. Fuck.

Wrapping things up, they noticed that one of two passages had light, while the other was cloaked in darkness. For some reason, they went with the darkness and strangely thought it was a bad idea only after discovering numerous humanoids entombed in ice along the walls. They still kept going, stopping only after running into a fledgling white dragon. Donner tried the route of Diplomacy, and considering that the dragon only demanded all their loot in exchange for letting them leave, I think it went well…that is, until someone decided to flaunt the skull they’d stolen. See, the dragon knew that it’s wyrmpriest was making it, and after getting a decidedly unsatisfactory answer as to the whereabouts of his servant, decided to up the ante and amend the terms of their release to include the sacrifice of a party member. They prayed that he did not alter it further.

Donner voted for himself, but Delinth being a stubborn bastard was having none of this and charged the dragon. This is where things went downhill. Fledgling white dragons have an Initiative modifier of zero, and after a spectacularly shitty roll of 2 it was determined that I went last. Donner went up and used whatever the fuck it is that grants allies a +2 to defenses for the encounter, Delinth charged with poised stance, dealing 20 or so damage with power strike, Riven used fountain of flame (which to her chagrin did not target allies), and Sand got it into well past bloodied with a high roll from a shortbow attack that was coupled with Sneak Attack and backstab. This triggered bloodied breath, which hit only two people for 11 damage.

My turn.

Failed to recharge breath weapon. Miss twice. Action point. Miss twice. Action point. Miss (with bite, so only one roll, here). Try to move away from the fountain of flame zone into the water, which would give everyone cold vulnerability and slow them, take more damage in the process.

Their turn.

Donner hucks a javelin, game over in less than two rounds. FML.

They look the dragon’s treasury for about a hundred gold, a gem or two, and a defensive hammer. I had them each roll on the level 1 table out of Rules Compendium, since I was changing everything on the fly anyway, so good for them. While trying to rest the last of the kobolds showed up, lead by Irontooth (a kobold that had eaten the heart of an iron dragon). They didn’t get a chance to fully rest, and the fight was pretty brutal in comparison to the dragon. Riven almost got taken down multiple times, Donner ran out of heals by the second round, and Delinth really couldn’t do any defender shit because most of the kobolds were on the other side of the freezing ass river throwing javelins and special stones. Josh played really smart, hucking javelins when melee was clearly a dumb avenue to pursue. He even had Delinth throwing them around, and I think with the lack of at-will exploits it was less of an issue since it in most cases meant a slight reduction in damage.

After slaying the last of the kobolds, they headed back to Winterhaven with more than enough proof of their deed (and hit level 2 in the process). The only other thing on their list is scoping out that ruined keep up north.

Keep on the Shadowfell w/ Essentials

I’m running Keep on the Shadowfell for the third time, for a third group. Fortunately, this time around I can take all the changes implemented from the second time (ie, the whole adventure) and better integrate them. It also helps that 75% of the party isn’t fucking drow, possibly due to the fact that I restricted the players to using Essentials (with a few exceptions). I did this partially because I wanted to see how it would work out in extended play, side by side with other content, but mostly because two of the three players are completely new to the game and I didn’t want to overwhelm them with hundreds of choices. If you’ve played Keep on the Shadowfell, there’re a lot of changes, so don’t be surprised.

So we got Delinth (dwarf knight), Sand (elf thief), and Riven (tiefling pyromancer, and this is where the exceptions come into play). Despite being new, all of the players rapidly came up with some character traits that I could readily use to drive the campaign in their direction. For example, Sand fled to Winterhaven to get away from the Fallcrest authorities, while Riven literally has a devil on her shoulders–which may or may not be a hallucination–that tempts her to burn things. Like both times, I started the characters out with the kobold ambush, using the stats from the Dungeon Master’s Book. Since there were only three players and no leader, I reduced the encounter two four minions, an artillery, and a lurker.

The encounter went smooth, all things considered. Since no one made their Perception checks, the ambush opened up with the slinger on the rock lobbing a stone at Delinth, which failed to hit his considerable AC of 20. I placed the other kobolds deep in the trees because Sand’s player kept going on about how he wanted to dive into the trees so that he could Stealth, and I wanted to give him something to knife. Unfortunately, he fucked up his Stealth and Perception, and stumbled upon two tunnelers lurking in there who promptly gave him two shovels in the face. Dillon, Delinth’s player, had a somewhat difficult time fiddling with defender’s aura and battle guardian, which is understandable since I’d also like to point out that they handwrote their sheets and power cards, and stood his ground after activating his aura, a stance, and readying an action to clobber the first kobold that got within a hammer’s swing. Riven? Well, even an attack bonus of +6 doesn’t help with nat one’s.

The slinger chucked another stone at Delinth, who easily side-stepped it (which sucks cause it would’ve immobilized him). The tunnelers continued to batter Sand into the ground, while another pair and slyblade rushed out of the southern tree line to gang up on Delinth. Sand managed to take down a tunneler, while Delinth’s cleaving stance allowed him to crush the tunnelers on his end. The round ended with Riven botching another scorching burst. Mebbe she needs glasses? Perhaps that imp on her shoulder is playing the backseat wizard?

For the third round, the slinger pegged Riven with a firepot, but since she’s a tiefling it didn’t amount to shit. She retaliated with infernal wrath, causing his skin to smoke and blister, while Sand gratefully took an opportunity attack to nat 1 the slinger. Fortunately, he remembered elven accuracy and turned it into a killing blow with a combination of Sneak Attack and backstab (4d6 + 6 damage for the win). The battle was basically won, though it took another round for the party to gang up on the slyblade. The killing shot went to Riven, who was tired of missing and did the job proper with magic missile. Automatic hits are pretty rad.

They arrived at Winterhaven without further incident. Riven split off to deliver the message to her mentor’s friend Valthrun, while Sand and Delinth scoped out the rest of the village and managed to pick up a quest to exterminate the kobolds plaguing the town from Padraig. This is one way that I diverge from the original adventure: the two primary plot points this time around are the kobold lair and keep (which is not fucking called Shadowfell Keep). Neither of the two have any connection with the exception that the Big Bad knows about the kobolds, but doesn’t give a damn because as far as he’s concerned that stretches out Winterhaven’s defenses and makes it less likely that they’ll figure anything out. If they do? Well, it’ll be all the more difficult for them to do something about it.

The dragon graveyard is something that they can learn about in passing from Valthrun (which Riven did), but is more of an “optional” location that can give them some extra XP and items. I seem to recall that someone had the Big Bad digging about the site for a rib or whatnot, but I’m going to say that the dude wants a skull, and since the kobolds look at it like a sacred site that it’s been difficult for his minions to procure one. If they get it, I’ll prolly make it a wondrous item that will help them out later…unless it gets stolen in which case it will make things a bit harder for them.

They decided to head out to the kobold lair, which is good because I want them to hit up the lair and graveyard first so that they can get a few magic items and more XP. They got to try out their first skill challenge, but relied almost entirely on Nature and Perception. That’s fine, since they’re new. Riven used History to recall some of the maps in Valthrun’s tower that provided a rough idea where the graveyard was, deducing that the kobolds would likely be close by. Unfortunately, neither Nature nor Perception are anyone’s strong suit, and they got ambushed by more kobolds and a guard drake. After trouncing them we called it because it was 2am and I didn’t have the kobold lair map on hand. I guess I’ll have to draw it next time we play.

Not surprisingly, everything played just like 4th Edition, except for class resources. The players controlling the knight and thief only had to worry about one encounter exploit, routingly making basic melee attacks each round, modified only by the stance or trick used. This kind of fucked Delinth, who spent the first round of combat “prepping” his aura and stance. Were he a fighter he could have moved and then charged a kobold, dealing some damage and auto-marking the target, but I’m sure thats part of the inherent balance.

Staffs & Spells

There’s some more Essentials support in the form of staff-fighting options and another mage school specialization.

Starting with staffs, the article comes in two parts. The first allows knights and slayers to pick non-parallel alternative class features in order to make the quarterstaff a viable choice, in case that’s something that appealed to you. Personally, I’m kinda meh on it because while I haven’t had a chance to take either class for a spin, using a big-ass sword appeals to me a lot more than a stick. Anywho, knights can replace Shield Finesse with Spinning Deflection, which grants an AC and Reflex bonus when wielding a staff, and you still count as using a shield for power prereqs. Additionally, they can take Bludgeoning Staff at level 7 in order to push enemies that they hit with power strike. Slayers on the other hand can take Rapid Quarterstaff at level 7 in order to deal automatic damage to adjacent critters when using power strike, and can take staggering staff for their level 12 utility, which lets them slide a target they miss as a free action.

The feat groups here are Ordained Weapon, Thief Weapon, and Weapon Training, each with their own pair of feats. Ordained Weapon feats are only useful for divine classes: Staff of Knowledge grants combat advantage for a single divine attack, while Staff of Travel lets you shift when you hit with divine attacks. Thief Weapon feats apply to thieves and/or rogues by virtue of their prereqs, allowing you to daze with a backstab or gaining both proficiency with a staff and being able to use Sneak Attack with it. That’s a bit more up my alley, evoking images of the Robin Hood movie with Kevin Costner. Finally, Stout-Handed Staff basically lets small characters use a quarterstaff, as well as shift if you prone someone when smacking them with one, while War Wizard’s Staff lets you usher an ally out of the way when using close arcane attacks. You know, if you’re the kind of character that gives a shit if you’re going to explode an ally.

Speaking of exploding allies, the new school on the block is pyromancy, which to me seems like a subset of evocation. It presents itself like the other schools do in Heroes of the Fallen Lands, just not intermixed throughout the class’s progression. In other words, its easier to determine what benefits it provides throughout your career. Starting with the heroic tier, Pyromancy Apprentice grants a passive, untyped, scaling bonus on arcane fire attacks. Wow. Pair this with a tiefling with Hellfire Blood and you’ll be packing some serious heat. Okay well, Pyromancy Expertise doesn’t give you any magical benefits, instead giving a passive bonus to Bluff and Intimidate…which are two iconic tiefling skills. Hrmm… Pyromancy Master causes area and close arcane attacks to create zones that inflict automatic damage for a turn. I wonder if tieflings in Heroes of the Forgotten Kingdoms are going to get optional Con bonuses?

I like all these features, mostly because I like tieflings a lot and it seems specifically geared towards them, which is completely fucking fine by me. At paragon tier, Pyromancy Action lets you pick an enemy when you burn an action point, and for an entire turn anytime you hit them with a fire effect, they take maximum damage.  Brutal. Kelwyn’s devouring fire is your level 11 attack, which hits a nice area and deals half damage on a miss (or you can slide them). If you kill anything, survivors take automatic fire damage again. I find it odd that you can opt to deal half damage or slide creatures outside the area of effect. I wonder if spells will be updated to represent missed targets leaping out of the way? The level 12 utility lets you transform into an elemental-type shape, granting fire immunity, a bonus on attacks based on the number of targets you’re gunning for, and automatic damage to creatures stopping next to you. Very cool if cliche. Finally, at level 20 you get a very hefty 10d10 fire damage attack that not only hits an area 2 burst within 20 squares, but chalks off half your hit points (and you cannot reduce it, either). Yeesh. Fuck meteor swarm.

Not a bad haul, though a staff-wielding defender wasn’t really one of my must haves, or even kinda-sorta-wanna haves. At least some of the new feats could be used by other characters, so there’s some nice coverage there. Mostly, I’m stoked over the pyromancer. Josh wanted someone to play a wizard, so this’ll be a good chance to tryout another tiefling that focuses on fire magic.